Arrhythmias

Only 4 weeks into the semester and already half way through EKG!! Gotta love 8 week terms!

Unfortunately my brain isn’t as excited lol. All this information is causing my brain to swell! On a positive note, I have been learning so much and we are now starting to see everything come together!

This week in lab we were practicing lead placements on each other and each of us were able to see a print out of our resting EKG. Surprisingly three out of the six of us displayed signs of a sinus arrhythmia. What is a sinus arrhythmia? Well there not as frightening as they may sound, and come to find out they are quite common.

A sinus arrhythmia will look exactly like a normal sinus rhythm except it is slightly irregular, meaning the spacing between the complexes are not the same. This is commonly due a variation in heart rate, which is accompanied by ones breathing pattern. Inspiration accelerates one’s heart rate, while expiration slows it down.

Below you will be able to see the difference between a normal sinus rhythm and a sinus arrhythmia.